Grade 8: Unit 2

As Mr. Frank comes back up the steps, Mrs. Frank questions him anxiously.

The tramping feet pass without stopping. The tension is relieved.

Mr. Van Daan. [Restraining himself with difficulty] Why aren't you nice and quiet like your sister Margot? Why do you have to show off all the time? Let me give you a little advice, young lady.

Anne. I never heard grownups quarrel before. I thought only children quarreled.
Mr. Van Daan. This isn't a quarrel! It's a discussion. And I never heard children so rude before.

Mrs. Frank. And...[She makes a motion upwards, indicating the Van Daans.]...I told your father it wouldn't work...but no...no...he had to ask them, he said...he owed it to him, he said. Well, he knows now that I was right! These quarrels!...This bickering!

Mrs. Van Daan. [Hysterically] You're crazy!

Margot. [With sudden foreboding] What's happened? Something's happened! Hasn't it, Mr. Kraler?

As Mr. Kraler speaks, they all listen with intense apprehension.

Anne. Mother, I have some intuition.

Thursday, the twentieth of April, nineteen forty-four. Invasion fever is mounting every day.

Then he cautiously opens the safe, taking out a half-loaf of bread. As he closes the safe, it creaks. He stands rigid.

Dussel. [Pleading, insistent] But this is the third time, Mr. Frank! The third time in quick succession! It's a signal! I tell you it's Miep, trying to get us! For some reason she can't come to us and she's trying to warn us of something!

An annotated timeline lists events and the dates on which they occurred.

The events in a timeline appear in chronological order, with the earliest events on the left and more recent events on the right.

Parallel timelines show events that are related to each other and happen during the same time period.

Anti-Jewish decrees followed each other in quick succession. Jews must wear a yellow star, Jews must hand in their bicycles, Jews are banned from trains and are forbidden to drive.

Jews must go to Jewish schools, and many more restrictions of a similar kind.

Quite honestly I’m not so keen that a stranger should use my things, but one must be prepared to make some sacrifices for a good cause, so I shall make my little offering with a good will.

And then I explained to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.

Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.

For I belong to a traumatized generation, one that experienced the abandonment and solitude of our people.

• The panels work together to tell a story.
• The panels cannot show everything that happens, so readers must use their imaginations to fill in the blanks.